The exhibition directs global attention to the vitality of contemporary American architecture and design through a broad representation of “the porch.” The porch is an unheralded American icon of architectural character, an American architectural place-construct persisting across scales, geographies, communities, construction methods, and histories. The American porch is more than an exercise in nostalgia, or a demonstration of contemporary inventive and ambitious architecture: this American porch is a collaborative porch, a projective porch, a speculative porch, a place of future-thinking, a place of social negotiation and cultural exchange where private lives interweave with public life. The exhibition welcomes visitors through a new “front porch” constructed at the US Pavilion. Within the Pavilion, the exhibition highlights the American porch’s multilayered character, value, and contemporary purpose through the presentation of inventive, diverse, and sustainable contemporary projects and practices by 54 exhibitors—including architects, landscape architects, designers, artists, nonprofits, and individuals from across the US and its territories, selected through the national open call for projects. Accompanying those exhibitors, dedicated installations including American Porch Life, a 132-foot long display on the genealogy of porches; the Porch Library of 700 volumes on architecture and stories about porches; Porch Unbound; and Objects of Belonging highlight how this typology developed and its importance in society. Beyond its formal utility, the richness of the porch comes through the ways it is inhabited, occupied, and activated: the interiors and exteriors of homes, and between the shelter of architecture and the contingencies of weather, climate, and light. In ecological terms, the porch is akin to an ecotone. This transitional region between two environmental conditions accentuates our understanding of our latitude and longitude, of the weather, of climate—and of the dynamics of climate change. From the vantage point of the porch, we not only comprehend these dynamic conditions, but also construct new understandings, commitments, and actions to address those changes. For the 2025 US Pavilion, the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, University of Arkansas is partnering with DesignConnects and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

Peter MacKeith, dean and professor of architecture at the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design at the University of Arkansas, appointed in July 2014, is the fifth dean of the school and a nationally recognized design educator and administrator. MacKeith is an Association of Collegiate School of Architecture distinguished professor, a senior fellow of the Design Futures Council, and a Knight, First Class, of the Order of the Lion of Finland. MacKeith has led, organized and curated exhibitions of the vitality of contemporary architecture in the Nordic region—including the 2012 Nordic Pavilion at the Venice Biennale—and in the American South, most recently the exhibition, publication and symposia centered on the South Forty initiative, an ongoing project that presents and supports emerging and accomplished practices across the region. This project has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale, the Fay Jones School, and is planned for the National Building Museum in 2025.

Rod Bigelow serves as executive director and chief diversity and inclusion officer for Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the Momentary. He has served as executive director since 2013, guiding all facets of the museum’s strategies, mission, vision and values, reflecting his more than twenty years of experience in management of arts and cultural institutions. Bigelow joined Crystal Bridges in 2010, serving as the deputy director of operations and administration, with a focus on organizational and policy development as well as construction activities leading up to the museum’s opening in November 2011. During Bigelow’s tenure, the institution has welcomed more than 12.2 million visitors.

Susan Chin, an accomplished urbanist and civic leader, leads the independent consultancy DesignConnects. She led the Design Trust for Public Space, a nationally recognized New York City (NYC)nonprofit organization at the forefront of shaping the public realm for over eight years. Prior to Design Trust, she was assistant commissioner for Capital Projects at NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, commissioning innovative and high-performance architecture and public art citywide. She serves as American Institute of Architects (AIA) Committee on Design communications chair; and also served as vice president on AIA national board, and chapter president of AIA New York. Her awards include: American Society of Landscape Architects Honorary Membership; AIA New York States' Kideney Gold Medal, and Del Gaudio; The Ohio State University's Distinguished Alumna; and Harvard Graduate School of Design Loeb Fellowship. She has served on the East Midtown Governing Group and the NYC & Company board of directors.

Founded in 1871 as a land-grant institution, the University of Arkansas (UofA) is the flagship of the University of Arkansas System with ten colleges and schools offering more than 273 academic programs. UofA students represent 50 states and more than 100 countries. The UofA is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission. The Carnegie Foundation classifies the university as having “the highest possible level of research,” placing us among the top colleges and universities nationwide. The University of Arkansas is determined to build a better world by providing transformational opportunities and skills, promoting an inclusive and diverse culture, nurturing creativity, and solving problems through research and discovery, all in service to Arkansas.The Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, University of Arkansas advances design excellence through a multi-disciplinary, place-responsive design education, in service to Arkansas, the nation and the world. Within the curricular context of an excellent professional design education, the school provides a vital design culture and educational environment grounded in critical design thinking, multidisciplinary collaborations and civic engagement. Founded in 1946, the school is constituted by nationally recognized degree programs in architecture, interior architecture and landscape architecture, as well as the award-winning University of Arkansas Community Design Center, the Anthony Timberlands Center for Design and Materials Innovation and Garvan Woodland Gardens. Across the school, students focus on issues of community with a global awareness, designing for the lives of real people and towards a better environment, through a responsible emphasis on the materiality and experience of design, preparing students to work productively across geographies, societies and cultures.

The mission of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is to welcome all to celebrate the American spirit in a setting that unites the power of art with the beauty of nature. Since 2011, the museum has welcomed more than 13 million visitors and 478,375 school children, with no cost for admission. Crystal Bridges was founded in 2005 as a nonprofit organization by arts patron and philanthropist, Alice Walton. The collection spans American masterworks from early American to current day, enhanced by temporary exhibitions and public programming. The museum, nestled on 120 acres of Ozark landscape and designed by architect Moshe Safdie, will complete a 114,000 square foot expansion in 2026. A rare Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house was relocated to the museum grounds in 2015. In February 2020, the museum opened the Momentary in downtown Bentonville conceived as a platform for the art, food, and music of our time.

DesignConnects’ mission is to create and nurture places and organizations using art and design, collaboration and civic leadership. DesignConnects provides services in design, nonprofit management, community engagement, advocacy, policy making, government operations and public/private partnerships associated with culture, architecture, preservation, landscape and urban design, and planning. Recent projects include: Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden; New York Chinese Scholar’s Garden renovation; and Portland, Oregon’s Back to Square One: Rethinking O’Bryant Square.